Abstract/Description

Notes

Online trading is a booming business, although it hasn t yet caught up with conventional marketing. But what if trading partners shift their business and replicate conventional trading online? It has already started.
The partners in the eGreenCoffee exchange (egreencoffee.com), which was launched in June 2000, include roasters Jobin and Lavazza, the supervisory Société Générale de Surveillance, bankers ABN-AMRO and Sucden. The exchange has 200 members who handle over 60% of coffee consumed worldwide, although their current bids and offers on the exchange total only 200,000 tonnes.
Another player is InterCommercial Markets Corp (www.intercommercial.com), which was launched in late 2000. It has linked up with the New York Board of Trade, the Swiss Volcafe company and Folgers and Millstone, two major coffee operations of US-based multinational Procter & Gamble.
The aim of these and many other similar initiatives is to reduce the fragmentation of the geographically widespread coffee market and reduce the supply chain costs. By bringing aboard coffee producers, roasters, certifying bodies, insurers and financiers, trading can be streamlined.
The Association of Coffee Producing countries has welcomed online trade as a means of reducing intermediate costs, but argues that the volume is still limited and thus has had no impact on prices yet. In the long run e-commerce will bring about direct links between farmers and roasters and can help farmers if they embrace this technology.